I Have a Pepper, a Real Pepper!

I mentioned in a few posts back that I was excited for my newly forming pepper. Well, my little pepper has progressed and is now plumb sized. Not only that, he has brothers! A pea sized pepper facing South, and another one facing Northeast. I can hardly believe it, after a couple of years striking out, I'm going to (hopefully) have a 3 pepper plant!

The tomato plants are flowering now, both the cherry and the heirloom plants are around a foot and a half tall and looking great.

Short post, longer one soon. Pictures eminent. (I've been saying that)

Signs of Fruit

Compared to years past, I've been doing a nice job on the garden this Spring. (Ouch, I just pulled a muscle patting myself on the back) The beds are both weed free, despite a little clover, and I've been bonsai'ing the crap out of my strawberries, tomatoes and red pepper plants. My meddling doesn't show for much with the strawberries and peppers (other than the plants generally looking greener than they should) but the tomatoes are starting to take on a distinct pine tree shape. I'm excited to see what I can do once they really start growing in July, assuming my excitement doesn't wane too much. I'm envisioning a nice Christmas tree shaped cherry tomato plant...

The catnip has started to bloom. Columns of pretty purple flowers (and you thought I was some knuckle dragging Neanderthal) popping up everywhere, delighting man (i.e. me), cat, and hornet alike. I used to view the hornets as a nuisance but after watching them a little bit yesterday, they seem to be doing a fine job pollinating the garden, especially the mint and the strawberries. I'd rather have bees but hey, beggars can't be choosers and as long as they don't sting me in the ass, I'll count my blessings.

I just got my first box of miracle grow and I'm fertilizing tonight. (I know, such a cheater) Couldn't be more excited, wish me luck!

Still Prepping for my Root Veggies

With all of the rain of late and my diligent weeding, the garden is looking pretty tip-top. The strawberry bed in particular is looking about as green and healthy as ever. I'm not sure if I'm helping or hurting the plants but whenever I see a leaf that's been munched on, I snip it right off at the base. 9 times out of 10 there's already a leaf start coming up, I figure this might keep the plant more vital but I'd be happy to hear any one's input on this one.

Speaking of input, let me throw this one out there...

To fertilize or not to fertilize?

I haven't for 3 years but I'm very tempted to try the miracle grow experiment this year as I haven't put anything in this garden for some time. I'm going to have carrots and onions (in addition to tomatoes and strawberries) so I'm curious to see if I can increase my normal yield.

Sunny today, may it last until this early afternoon when my planters are in full sun.

Catepillars!!!

The pepper start is looking great, green and perky as can be. Unfortunately, its leaves must taste great too as catepillars from far and wide are converging on my newest pride and joy. I picked around the soil and around a few of the leaves finding my hungry little enemies here and there.

Does anyone know of a good way to keep them off of plants? Aside from pesticides is there anything I can spray on the leaves to make them a little less savory?

Besides the attack of the catepillars the garden is looking great. The weeds are gone the strawberries are pruned and everything is looking green as can be. Short post today, I'll be sure to have a longer post after I get my vegetable seeds in the ground. Things could change but for now I'm thinking carrots in the bottom planter and onions in the top.

Springtime is Here!

It has been a long winter in more ways than one. I paid homage to my late father in my other blog, "Backyard Kung Fu with the Boys" but in many ways, mentioning him during my Spring planting is much more fitting. I am the fruit of his loins after all, the Spring to his Winter. I miss you Dad, send some love to my garden. Maybe with some help from the afterlife I can actually grow some red peppers, lol.

This Summer will (with luck) be the Summer of tomatoes. (Muhahaha!) I didn't go crazy, I got an heirloom and a cherry start. For a little spice I added a red pepper plant. With the help of my lovely gardening assistant Kelsey I planted everything last evening, it was a lot of fun. It felt good to get a little dirt under my fingernails, all the while basking in a little of Seattle's best April sunlight.

Now for the status of last year's survivors;

Catnip: I pruned it down to the nubs after last year but already I have halo shaped profusion popping up on the left side of my upper planter. Shouldn't be long before it's brimming with pretty little purple flowers. The bees love this plant and from the looks of it (there's a bed right in the middle of the stalks) the neighborhood cats do too.

Orange Mint: Directly below the catnip I have a growing colony of orange mint. I let it ravage the strawberry bed last year and I'll have to live with my decision as it's popping up quickly EVERYWHERE. (Luckily it smells wonderful) I'm going to have to drink a lot of orange mint mojitos this Summer to keep this monster at bay. I'm up for the challenge, hiccup...

Strawberries: I'm about half way through my spring pruning and a few of the plants are looking pretty darn good. Over towards the pepper plant however (it's on the right of the bottom planter) I should just pull up the rest and begin anew. I saw some good Quinalt strawberry starts at Fred Meyers yesterday, it would probably be a good idea to throw some new ones in where my 3 year old plants currently sit.

English Lavender: I was worried about this guy last year but this plant has really become my early Spring success story. The gray faded leaves of last Summer have been covered up by 2-3 inches of nice green growth. Furthermore, I'm noticing shoots coming out of the ground around its base, signs of a more robust plant to come, my fingers are crossed. I've been fretting over this plant for too long for it not to fill out the right side of the upper planter like I've always intended.

The tax return check is coming and one of my first purchases will be my neighbor's old digital camera so be ready for photographic evidence of my successes and/or failures. Until then, may your roses be red and your thumbs green.

The Lone Pumpkin

Short update for y'all...

After all my excitement over the pumpkins, only one will emerge. It's about 5 inches in diameter, mostly green but turning orange on the top. I don't think it will make a pie and any jack-o-lantern attempt might require an exact-o knife. This year was my first attempt and I've learned plenty. Here's my short list:

-I need to pay attention to when the vine is flowering and do some forced pollination. Luckily, I watched Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs dude) do it on TV recently.

-Pumpkins will go on their own 10-20 gallon planter. That way I won't have to worry about them messing with my other fruits and vegetables and perhaps (without the competition) I can get multiple decent sized pumpkins.

-I need to get my garden on a watering/fertilizing cycle. My version of organic (i.e. neglecting the garden) has yielded less than desirable results, pumpkins aside.

I think I'm going to pull up everything but the cat mint and English lavender come fall. With a fresh perspective and new plants, I think I'll be able to make something I'm really proud of. Look for more posting next Spring, might not have a post on here for a while. Please take a look at my new blog on Kung Fu, might have a blog on my band (www.everysingledayband.com) coming soon.

May your thumbs be green and your gardens organic. See you next year!

Rise of the Pumpkins!

My garden is now officially a pumpkin patch! I figured that it might happen, heck, I even welcomed it but now there's no turning back. The hot sun we've been having, coupled with the general neglect I've given my garden's other inhabitants, has allowed the pumpkin vines to dominate my planters. Unfortunately, it would seem that only one of the many yellow pumpkin flowers was pollinated and hence, there's only one actual pumpkin going right now. According to my gardening friend and pumpkin aficionado Jacob, I needn't worry. Apparently, the vines without fruit should throw out plenty of extra flowers in the next few weeks of hot sun. He says that the vines are already established enough that growing a full sized pumpkin by late fall should be no trouble, even with a late start. Well, for the sake of; pumpkin pie, jack-o-lanterns, and potentially a brown sugar pumpkin stout (I have quite a collection of friends who home brew beer), my fingers are crossed for the bees to reach my female flowers. I may even play honeybee and use a q-tip to do the job myself.

A quick note on some of my other garden players:

-The catnip is done with its mad growth and since being cut back is pretty lackluster.

-The orange mint is developing flowers, last year they were white, this year it appears the blooms will be purple. (Why is that?)

-I'm not sure but I think I had a clover plant cross pollinate (or hybridize) with a blackberry. It's the weirdest thing, it's like a clover but instead of white puffy flowers, it makes slender blackberries. I've never seen anything like it.

-My strawberries are in their second fruiting right now, much better berries than the June Harvest, bigger, sweeter, juicier, yummers.

-The English Lavender I transplanted from my lower planter to the upper is now firmly established, the plump purple flowers are very nice to look at.

Pictures are coming people but don't let that keep you from being the very first person to comment on my blog. C'mon I know you want to! I may also be starting another blog of more everyday (non-garden) related material including my new found quest(s) to become an established Seattle musician and kung-fu martial artist respectively. Stay tuned.

Pumpkins and Procrastination

Alas, I've been away from this blog for much too long. Busy with work, family, band, etc. No excuses though, I haven't felt much like writing but today I do. There's been so much change and progress within the confines of my humble garden planters that I would feel remiss not to clue my 1 follower in.

New Item 1: Pumpkins! I'm sure I'm slaughtering the quote but I've heard other gardeners say, "If you want to be a successful gardener, grow pumpkins." I can see now how this is true despite initially having my doubts. When I first got the starts in (By the way thank you Jacob for being my pumpkin starts hook-up) they went limp immediately. By day two and a couple of watering sessions, they had perked up considerably. Fast forward 3 weeks later and the five original vines have tripled in area and have huge hand sized leaves. Each vine is showing a couple of pumpkins but I figure I'm going to try to limit them to one per. (Free free to advise me on this) My only real concern is where I'm going to direct the quickly growing vines. One wants to go right over the strawberry patch while another is running into clover and catnip with nowhere else to really go. I'll have to come up with something soon.

New Item 2: The Strawberries are Here! Yes, they're a little stunted (I may have been a bit bold by letting the patch go for 3 years without transplanting), yes, they're a little misshapen but they're delicious and they're plentiful. The squirrels and birds have left them alone and very few have been eaten by slugs or bugs. I'm happy as can be with the progress of my strawberry patch. Strawberry shortcake updates soon to come.

New Item 3: Bees really love catnip flowers. I tell you what, if you're a bee keeper or have an orchard that requires pollination, you may want to consider planting this stuff. My new guilty pleasure is sitting in a lawn chair near the mint and watching the bees go happily from flower to flower. I never would have figured myself for much of an insect watcher but now I'm hooked. I'm glad also that the bees seem to tolerate me. I've always been one to keep pretty calm and collected around potential danger in the form of pin pricks, they'll buzz by me from time to time, occasionally landing on my arm. I enjoy their presence, it smacks of a healthy garden. I treat the bees and spiders with as much respect as I can. They are after all the caretakers of my garden and likely a big reason that the squirrels have remained at bay.

New Item 4: Zucchini! (Isn't that a fun word to say) Everybody say it now, Zucchini! Feel better? I inherited some starts from my neighbor and like the pumpkins (at first) they've gone completely flaccid. At any rate, I hope they regain their vigor, I'd love to have some fried Zucchini later in the summer. Zucchini, flaccid, regain vigor; sounds like the trimmings of a good frat boy joke...

Pictures will be coming soon folks. I hope all of your endeavors and personal gardens are healthy and happy ones.

Attack of the Catnip (Part 2: Redemption)

If you're a follower of this blog, (So far I count one, thanks mom) you know that I recently vented about my ever spreading catnip plant. While I don't regret what I've said (The plant continues to be a pain) I'm not giving you the whole story. After returning home from a weekend away from the garden, I've discovered evidence of what may soon become the silver lining around my dark cloud of a mint problem.

Upon inspection of my neglected garden (My roommate apparently didn't get my message to water it) I found everything in fairly good condition. The strawberries were continuing to thrive, the lavender is sending out roots and the catnip had hundreds of beautiful purple flowers. As I was inspecting said flowers, I discovered what looked to be a flattened out bed and some cat hair. It appeared that my prolific mint had attracted one of the neighborhood kitties! At first I was a little upset. After all, it's my garden and I don't want to share it with a mangy alley cat who's just going to lie in the sun getting high of my catnip, before taking a dump as he leaves. (Oh, I found 'evidence' of this as well, rolled around in the dirt it looked kind of like Almond Roca but I digress...) Upon further reflection however, I think my anger was misguided. Cats after all, are highly adaptable predators, widely known to prey on birds and small rodents. Hence, if I could attract a cat or two, I would have a natural defense against the strawberry (and tomato) robbing squirrels and earthworm grabbing birds. Essentially (and please allow my abstract analogy) it's like buying your crazy uncle Rufus a 12 pack of Natty-Ice to sit in a lawn chair and watch your freshly poured cement driveway cure. Sure, he'll be piss drunk when you get home and your leftover BBQ chicken will be completely gone but at least your driveway won't have all of the neighbor kids' names written in it. (Along with any curse words they can misspell) All in all, a fair trade.

So Mr. Catnip, I apologize for my harsh appraisal earlier. I failed to see the obvious benefits you could have. Yes, you spread like fire in a windstorm and threaten my vegetable beds with your very existence but you attract potentially valuable guard dogs (or rather cats) to my precious garden. May your aroma attract the most vicious squirrel killing cat possible. I will gladly clean up his smelly presents in return for a healthy fruit harvest.

Attack of the Catnip

A lot of horror stories probably start out with the words, "My mother told me not to but..." This horror story is no exception. Against her advice (Incidentally, my mother is a certified Master Gardener to qualify her) I planted some mint plants last year in my garden. A happy little catnip and some orange mint. For fragrance right? (facepalm) They started out inconspicuously enough. The catnip actually took a while to establish itself, by the end of summer last year it had spread a few inches and took over my upper planter's left side, nothing too obnoxious. The orange mint (which had to compete with the strawberries in the lower bed) seemed to spread much more easily. Its vines lined the edge of the planter, even finding a way to flank the upper bed right next to the catnip. Luckily, winter came and wiped them out. Right?

Fast forward 1 year, they're both out of control. The catnip in particular has become a massive bushy plant, nearly 3 feet tall and almost as wide. To keep it from spreading to space that I've reserved for vegetables, I'm now forced to cut it back everyday. The prospect of doing this daily, initially excited me. (I'm what you might call a naive optimist) My thoughts went something like this, "Well, we have a cat so he'll really love all the catnip I can bring in." Unfortunately however, he hates fresh catnip and will hardly touch it. This has forced me to come up with alternate plans, namely throwing all of the catnip in a waterproof bin to dry and somehow use it later. My roommate assures me that he loves dried catnip, I'm counting on this as my proverbial, "light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, I'm doing this all for nothing because catnip is a pain and it's really not that pretty or fragrant.

On to the orange mint which I was sure had died. (The area where I planted it looked like a wasteland, completely bare) While yes, the original group of leaves associated with the orange mint I brought home from the nursery had died, it's vines remained, albeit mostly hidden beneath my strawberry plants. This Spring, wherever those vines lingered from last year's spread, mint popped up, and boy does it ever pop up. On the edges of the lower bed, right amongst the strawberries, in the waste bin next to the garden, everywhere! Unlike the catnip however, it does smell nice and my mother assures me that I can use it in teas and possibly with food preparation. We'll see.

The moral of this story, listen to your mother.

It's Raining Earthworms

This last weekend was thankfully, a lazy one. Plenty of time to prune the old bug eaten leaves off of the strawberries (my obsession), weed and sweep the patio. As I was nearly finished sweeping up after Saturday morning's gardening, I heard a loud plop behind me. I was a little startled (more like intrigued) by the sound but even more startled at the sight of the largest night crawler that I'd ever seen. Seemingly straight from heaven, this enormous creepy crawler was nearly 7 inches long and thicker than a licorice whip. Normally, this kind of thing might elicit an, "ewww!" or two but as a gardener, I could hardly believe my luck. I scanned the trees above and found the likely source of my bounty, a nervous looking crow. I had stolen a meal from a crow chick! Yes!

It's not that I hate crows, or birds for that matter however as a Ballard resident who commutes to Fremont for his daily bread, I see a lot of them. A lot. Thus, my remorse over stealing a meal from a newly hatched crow (or ratbird as my friends like to call them) was quickly swallowed up by the joy of finding a living, crawling, fertilizer machine. As I put him in the planter, he took a few moments to get acclimated before beginning to furiously devour my rich soil. I hovered over (guarding against marauding crows bent on revenge) for nearly 15 minutes before the earthworm was completely underground. My lone regret is that I didn't snip him in half, because two earthworms are of course better than one.

My First Post!!!

I've long been described by my friends as a technological dinosaur. I don't have a cellphone (I know, I know...), I rarely email and I update my Facebook page with even less frequency. Needless to say, the idea of blogging is very daunting to this old soul and admitted technophobe. However, much to my own chagrin, I have come to a two-fold realization of late;

1. No matter how excited I am over my burgeoning strawberry plants, my close friends and family have a threshold for my musings on this topic.

2. I need some sort of outlet for this energy, especially one that has the potential to help me become a better gardener and/or writer.

Thus, with little fanfare the "Adventures in Urban Gardening" blog is born. It is my hope that I can share stories and anecdotes from my patio planter garden, while soliciting advice on how to tend my crops and keep those darn squirrels and birds at bay. (You may hear a great deal on the latter topic) I hope to implement my blog with pictures as soon as possible, however (as you may have guessed by now) I am digital camera-less. Anyway, a blog has to start somewhere and to those who may stumble upon it, thank you.

With a Happy Heart and Green Thumb,

Sylvan Strawberry Farmer